


Sweaty Shirts and Lack of Sleep, Romanticized

by summerwines



Series: No Sleep AU [1]
Category: Coraline (2009), Gravity Falls, ParaNorman (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Crossover, M/M, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-02
Updated: 2013-06-02
Packaged: 2017-12-13 18:36:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/827508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerwines/pseuds/summerwines
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's only one person who keeps Dipper Pines from going crazy, and the same goes for Norman Babcock. [College/No Sleep AU]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sweaty Shirts and Lack of Sleep, Romanticized

**Author's Note:**

> For the fabulous No Sleep AU! Basically an AU where our Mystery Kids are in college. I wrote this because of a message left to me by tyelperin (who, along with woahscout, have been cheering me on while I was writing this *hugs*). This was also based on/inspired by all the wonderful art, headcanons, and fic already made for the AU -- mostly by tyelperin, woahscout, and nekovale on Tumblr!  
> The poem is grabbed from [here](http://j0hhnn.tumblr.com/post/33877043908).

{ He sits at his orange wooden desk, with his legs propped up and crossed on the matching orange rotating chair. His laptop is in front of him, and he has his paper for International Crime and Justice on full screen. He types, the click-clacking of his fingers soft and swift. He wants to tear his hair out, badly. He wants to give a giant middle finger to all the criminal psychologists who thought it was a brilliant idea to put criminology students through a constant mindfuck.

The air in his room is humid, pungent, and Dipper feels the stickiness of the sweat on his forehead, on his freckled cheeks, and under his armpits. He feels it under the thick cloth of his red t-shirt and the thin cotton of his boxers. He feels dampness on his uncombed hair and itchiness on his thinly haired legs. While mentally he feels exhausted, in a physical sense, he feels quite normal.

Behind him, his sister is bouncing and nagging while she sits on his busted up green couch. He thinks, briefly, that maybe she’s on drugs. She could easily be on some sort of performance enhancing steroid. How else could people explain her grandiose amount of free time even though she probably has more clubs than anyone else on campus?

Again and again she repeats “c’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” in an attempt to get him to join Coraline’s (or Ms. I Never Get Low Grades Jones’) joyride to the woods tonight, a Friday night. She tells him that Neil’s bringing the car this time around and that his car is “like, fancy schmancy.” Coraline’s made sure that there’s going to be a ton of booze. Dipper thinks she probably mooched off money from Wybie.

“No, Mabel,” Dipper replies, flatly, as he types in a few words into his laptop.

“You’re getting way too obsessed with school Dipper,” she says. That, Dipper knows, is Coraline’s exact argument for why they should be having these bi-weekly trips. She says that they’re getting too obsessed with school and that they need to get “wasted” and “crazy” so they wouldn’t turn into perfect little kids with buttons for eyes, whatever that meant.

Yes, Dipper’s days are wrapped in school related madness. He’s wrapped in coffee-stained clothing and the recycled paper of police blotters. He has been for quite some time. He doesn’t need a routine change.

“Dipperrr,” Mabel whines.

“I’ve got a lot to do,” Dipper says. “And I thought you would too. Don’t you have, like, fencing practice or something?”

“Yes, I did,” Mabel says, proud. “And I finished early. I even had aerobics practice an hour ago. So yes, I’ve been busy, broseph, but I’m good at managing my time.”

“Yeah, well.”

“You used to love going on adventures,” Mabel harrumphs.

“Well you guys aren’t going on an adventure, are you?” he says, his voice rising, condescending. “You’re just a bunch of dudes getting drunk and setting yourselves up for a lot of regret in the morning.” There’s nothing supernatural or enticing about that. He’d rather go online and read anecdotes about people witnessing demon parades.

Mabel whines, yet again. “Dipperrr.”

Dipper rolls his eyes, stops his typing, puts his feet down, and turns his chair to face his sister.

“Is Norman gonna be there?”

She winces. “You know he can’t, Dippy. He’s out there filming.”

Yeah, he thought so.

“More of a reason not to go.”

He turns his chair back.

Actually, he hasn’t talked to Norman for four days. He’s only seen him here and there, rushing about with his camera and his cardboard cue cards. He understands, though. He doesn’t take too much issue with it. It’s just that time of year.

He really does want to see him; that’s true enough. And, yeah, he would’ve considered taking Mabel up on her offer if Norman was coming along. He would’ve been happy to.

}

 

{ It’s Sunday.

And, goddamn. He’s managed to finish his editing.

Indeed, Norman has been missing in action for the past few days; he’s aware of that. He wants to fix it.

He keeps one hand inside his baggy black jacket, and he wipes the sweat off his other hand onto his zombie t-shirt.  He does that before he crunches his knuckle, readying himself to press light, apprehensive knocks onto Dipper’s door.

It’s one of those rare days when they’re willing to put off anything they have to do. Norman decides it’d be good for them both to get off campus, eat some non-processed lunch, and go to the video store. Dipper agrees, swiftly putting on layers of dark brown fall clothing as soon as Norman gives the suggestion. Really, they could’ve downloaded any movie through some file-sharing website. Norman could’ve even just asked one of his film buddies to lend him a DVD. But, the thing is, to Norman, any excuse to leave college behind right now is a good one.

They eat crispy buttered chicken and salty fried noodles at this Chinese place on a street where people silently walk, somber and lazy, in tandems or trios and where autumn leaves are scattered plastering color onto the otherwise dreary sidewalk. Norman eats slowly because he knows they have all the time in the world. Dipper eats slowly because he struggles with the chopsticks, cursing and fumbling. They sit across from each other, talking a bit about their professors and about Mabel’s so-called groundbreaking ideas for her class’ upcoming charity fashion show. Their voices are subdued and their eyelids droop low.

It’s a little bit weird, because it’s quieter than usual. Their conversations have never been this small before.

It makes Norman’s heart hurt.

He’s itching.

Forty minutes is spent at the restaurant, and another forty minutes is spent at the video store. Norman is at a bit of a loss when they start rummaging through the stacks, CD cases organized in neat rows on plastic shelves. It’s all: been there, seen that, didn't like, really liked – but, yeah, seen it. It’s one slasher movie with a girl in a skimpy outfit after another. He does find The Evil Dead 1 on Blu-ray though, and he keeps it under his armpit while he looks through the others.

Norman keeps the case with him when he moves on to look at the music selection. Dipper is there, beside him, lips pursed and silently humming something from The White Stripes, while he flips through the European pop music.

Norman opts to stare, just for a while.

He pretends to be looking at the CDs, flicking through the electronica.

Dipper’s hair is, as per usual, an unruly mess. He’s in his eyeglasses, the ones that have rectangular lenses. Norman swears there are more freckles on his cheeks. Norman wants to lift Dipper’s bangs up to see the mark of his namesake. His expression is blank, while his callused fingers move from CD to CD, stopping a few times when he sees something interesting.

“You’re staring at me.”

Norman flinches and lowers his head.

“Uh—Y—Yeah. I was just thinking about something.”

“What is it?”

“It’s nothing, really.”

“C’mon, you can tell me.”

“I just—well—“ He turns to Dipper, and he sees Dipper’s expression is as blank as ever. Norman digs his hands, sweaty and tense, into the pockets of his jacket.

His mouth shuts tight, because he can’t think of anything to say. He decides to look away again.

He feels Dipper stir. He feels a hand on his arm, light and careful. He suddenly feels a peck on his cheek.

Of course he turns wide-eyed. Of course he has to turn around, eyes wide and incredulous. Dipper is holding on to Norman’s arm; his grip tightens. He has his head down, eyes avoidant, and cheeks flushed red.

“What was that for?”

Dipper shrugs, keeping his position.

 “Jesus, dude,” Norman says, and he leans down his head to sneak a kiss at Dipper’s lips. They’re soft and warm, like home, like a marshmallow.

He ends up dropping the DVD, because they kind of make out right there on the spot. The thing gets busted and cracked, and Norman has to pay for it. Whatever, though. Whatever. Tonight, decidedly, would not be a night for movies.

}

 

{ Dipper spends most of the morning with his nose in Norman’s t-shirt and jacket, which are thoughtfully left behind. His whole body feels damp, and his heart feels tight and unsatisfied. His skin is rough and itchy, his ass is sore, and his stomach is sharpied with a horned devil below his bellybutton. He feels alone and hungry and bitter. The guy should’ve waited till he woke up.

He knows he has to get up soon because his alarm goes off, 9 AM. He has a Women’s Studies class with Coraline, which he’s not looking forward to. It’s not because of the subject. Building an intersectional viewpoint on feminism is plenty worthwhile. What he fears is Coraline, tall and statuesque Coraline, who he is never comfortable talking with.

“You’re late,” is the first thing she says to him today, as he takes a seat beside her in the lecture hall.  He’s wearing Norman’s oversized jacket over Norman’s t-shirt and his own khakis. He’s barely taken a shower, and he knows he might smell like an onion bagel and, maybe, a tad bit like musk and sex – not an appealing combination. Coraline, on the other hand, smells like expensive perfume. She’s in a yellow tank top, dark jeans, and a red blazer, and she looks as pretty as ever with her blue hair tied into a ponytail.

“We’ve been talking about the Staubenville incidents,” she fills him in, wagging her pen shaped like a voodoo doll. Dipper nods. He knows all about that; they’ve mentioned it in passing during his Criminal Law class. Of all the horrific things that could happen, what took place there and how it’s being dealt with is pretty much at the top of his list.

“You’re an asshole for not coming to my joyrides,” she tells him, in the middle of the discussion, making Dipper send her a side eye and a grimace. He tells her in a muffled voice that he hasn’t got time to get himself into trouble right now. She tells him that he’s getting oh so boring, and she tells him that he needs to get “Mr. Poltergeist” out there with him.

“We went out yesterday,” is his retort to her, and that makes Coraline’s eyebrow arch up. She smirks, and gives him an “oh did you now?” Then she adds, “I’ve heard he’s been busy with a documentary.”

“Yeah, he was,” Dipper says, dryly. “But he finished early. And, yeah, so we went out. So what? Who cares?” He keeps his eyes on his professor at the podium.

“You’re the one who brought it up.”

“Well now I’m un-bringing it up.”

Coraline giggles, like someone who just one a game. “Have you two ever been on a real date?”

Dipper doesn’t move his head. He gulps. He adjusts his glasses. In a small voice, he manages to say, “Of course. We have movie nights. In my room, just the two of us. And there was the party, right? Last spring? We went together, remember?” Those are their dates. That’s the way they like to do it.

“Hm,” she muses. She’s looking down, doodling something on her notebook. “I guess what I’m saying is, I miss non college-crazy Dipper. I mean, what happened to him?”

College happened.

“For Christ’s sake, I don’t need to explain myself to you.”

She snorts, chuckles, and then she shuts up, for a moment.

They just haven’t been blessed with the time to do much these days. Dipper doesn’t need to explain that. It should go without saying.

“That’s Norman’s jacket, isn’t it? And that’s his shirt too, right?”

Dipper freezes; he has to grind his teeth down to his lip.

He can feel the weight of her eye roll, blaring at him.

“Mmmhmm.”

}

 

{ Norman stops by the auditorium in the middle of the day. He comes to tag along with his Experimental Film classmates to watch the theatre students do a practice staging of Hamlet. They have a short film due at the end of this term, and they’re scouting for potential talent.

He has to fight for his eyes to stay open. He’s sitting at the front row, and all he can do to keep awake and not seem disrespectful is to keep thinking about other things.  His thoughts drift to and from his ideas for a stop motion film and his plans to go to Dipper’s dorm room later to give the guy’s back another sharpie attack. He also listens in to the dudebro poltergeists with bloodied noses and fraternity jackets having casual conversation above his head about past sexual conquests. He wonders what kind of unfinished business is keeping them from moving on to the afterlife.

Neil is there, of course, but he’s not doing any acting. He’s at the far right of the stage, being all smiley and fussy, painting one of the prop horses for the play. He’d given Norman a firm salute when he saw him walking in, and Norman had given a salute and a half-smile back.

“Yo Norm,” Neil says to him, once he manages to get away from his painting job and to grab the seat next to Norman.

“Yo,” Norman responds, lax.

“Sorry we’re not at our best today.”

“W—“ Norman pauses, thinks. It takes a minute before he realizes Neil means the actors. “Oh, yeah. I mean, no. You guys are great.”

“Psh.” He pats Norman’s back, friendly and polite in the way that Neil does, and he extends an arm around his shoulders. “You’ve been dozing off. I saw you, Norm.”

“No, I—I swear. I haven’t.” He makes his eyes go wide and he points to them. “See?”

“I get it,” he says. “You’ve been doing a lot of filming the past week. Which, by the way, I’ve been meaning to ask—“

“If it went well?”

“Yeah.”

Norman sighs. “It went okay enough.” He’d been working on this 20-minute documentary about campus legends with his overbearing, uptight classmate Billy Rowe, who refused to let any of Norman’s friends help with the project, even though the topic’s right up their alley. He spent days in annoyance and fatigue following Billy around while he spoke to janitors, to random students, and to the supernatural club (who are a bunch of geeks that think Norman is a godsend). He had to stage some weird reenactments of lame ghost stories. He didn’t bother to make an effort to ask actual ghosts to participate, since it’d probably scare the bejeezus out of Billy.

Neil seems unsatisfied with Norman’s answer; he nods and he sighs. He changes the topic, though. He says, “We got really, really wasted last Friday.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, but poor Wybie couldn’t take it. He, like, fainted and shit. Coraline needed to pull him all the way to his dorm room.”

Norman nods and smiles, though he isn’t particularly interested in Wybie Lovat. “Did anything exciting happen? In the woods?”

“Nah, man,” Neil says. “Kind of pissed Coraline off. Mabel didn’t really care though. And I didn’t either.”

“Was it just—uh—the five of you this time?”

“Mabel brought a couple of dudes,” he says, with a huff to follow. “But they couldn’t really relate with us. I mean, it’s us.”

He knows exactly what Neil means.

“I’ll try tagging along next time,” Norman says, because he does feel like he’s been missing out on something.

“Make sure the Dipster comes along.”

“Sure thing.”

“Have you been to Dipper’s lately?”

“Sure have.”

“Oh, no, man, don’t smile like that.” He takes his arm off Norman’s shoulder. He does a shiver, and Norman laughs, with his head tilting back.

They hear a ringing then, simultaneously. Neil feels up his jean pockets when he realizes it’s his phone.

“A text,” he says.

Neil starts smiling, and then he starts chuckling.

“Dude, who is it?”

“Mabel,” he says. “Apparently Dipper’s walking around campus wearing your clothes, Norm.”

“W—“ Before he can react further, Neil’s phone is shoved into Norman’s face. He sees Mabel’s text:

GET THIS. Dippy’s been walking around school in Normy’s dirty clothes. They totally did it last night. Do you know where Norman is??? Does he not have his phone???

Norman’s mouth falls open. “I—W—“

Neil takes his phone back when it vibrates.

“Oh my god. She sent a picture.” He starts giggling, his feet stomping and his eyes widening like a madman.

“I—I wanna see—G—Gimme that.” Norman flails his arms and takes the phone from Neil. He takes it and he sees what Mabel sent. He can’t help, of course, but blush.

He knows exactly how this would have gone. Coraline would be there with her unreal strength seizing Dipper’s hands, and Mabel would be there, always ready to ridicule, with her phone prepared to take the picture. Dipper’s embarrassment always registers in his face, and it’s oh so obvious this time around.

There he is, with his cheeks flushed and Norman’s jacket almost falling off his shoulders. They’ve pulled down his shirt, exposing Dipper’s freckled collarbone.

Norman’s laugh comes late.

He can only imagine the internal struggle going on in Dipper’s head.

}

 

{ “Are you trying to smell like me?”

Dipper’s face goes into a wince. He gets the question on a Wednesday afternoon at lunch, under a tree where, according to his questioner, a guy in a suit and tie is flying around trying to do a haunting.

“What in the world would give you that impression?”

They both sit against the tree, Dipper holding a book and a sandwich, Norman holding a box of leftover chicken nuggets. Norman’s legs, long and gangly, are stretched out. Dipper keeps his folded against his chest. Dipper was enjoying the nice day, the faint light of the autumn sun warm on his freckles, and the smell of Norman’s cologne strong and bleeding out to his nose. Norman should’ve just stayed quiet.

“You’ve been using my soap.”

“Yeah, and?”

“You’ve been borrowing my cologne.”

“Uhuh.”

“You’ve been borrowing my clothes.”

“Okay, your point?”

“Are you trying to smell like me?”

Dipper doesn’t answer. He can’t even muster a laugh. Instead, he adjusts his glasses, swats a fly away, takes a bite of his sandwich, and goes back to the page he’s been reading on his book. Norman sighs, at this. He puts on a face of disappointment, lips scrunched and eyes downcast.

The last thing Dipper wants to do is talk about his feelings. And he kind of wants to slam Norman’s head onto this tree, because he should know the answer to his own question. Duh, Mr. Babcock, is how he’d put it. Duh, you idiot.

}

 

{ This time, he refuses, and Norman is frustrated. Again, the guy’s excuse is that he has a bunch of essays to write. Mabel tries to help Norman pull Dipper out, but to no avail.

What Norman and Mabel end up doing is going out to town, just the two of them, out of spite.

They go to what Mabel calls “one of her favorite places.” Norman initially thinks it’s going to be one of those crazy Tokyo-based fashion boutiques. Norman doesn’t realize how poetic she could be. He hadn’t realized that Mabel was a lover of empty harbors with vacant brick-made warehouses and with broken planks floating in the water.

She brings along her sketchpad full of drawings of girls with full lips and elaborate dresses.

“Seriously. How do you even put up with that sour puss?” she asks him, while they’re side by side, legs swinging at the dock.

“He’s my sour puss,” he mutters.

“Oh Normy.” She smiles at him, in a small and very non-Mabel fashion. She pats her own cheeks and she takes her sketchpad.

They start talking about Mabel’s drawings. She asks for advice, because she’s been working on ghostly glamazon pieces for her next project. He tells her all about the ravaged clothing he’s encountered over the years worn by rich deceased women whose final wishes more often than not are that of getting their much deserved justice from their cheating husbands. Mabel ends up deciding to have all her pieces green, to keep a level of “realism.”

“You don't wanna sneak in some red or white in there?”

“I’ve got this,” she says, flat out, with a dismissive wave of the hand.

Norman moves on to talking about his films. He talks about that hellhole of a project with Billy. He talks about all the plans he has.   He mentions his plan for a 20-minute stop motion film. “I’m trying to make a replica of the Mystery Shack,” he explains. He’s got the clay and the sticks and everything. He’s only seen it in pictures, and he’s only heard stories about it, but he thinks the whole concept of twins fending off villains in a tourist trap with one too many secrets is hella intriguing. Mabel laughs so hard when she hears this; she has to hold her stomach. She almost falls into the water, Norman grabbing her arm and pulling her back in the nick of time.

“Don’t I have to sign some sort of patent thingy for this?” Mabel says, still chucking out bits of laughter.

“Uh, not to my knowledge, no,” he says, letting out a huff.

“These are things you should be telling the little Dippy, not me.”

Norman smirks. “Oh, he knows all about it,” he clarifies. “He even made suggestions. He—uh—“ Norman tries to remember exactly how Dipper had put it; Dipper had such a big smile and such exaggerated hand gestures when he was telling the story. Norman, knowing Mabel would know all about it settles for, “He mentioned something about gnomes who turn into people.”

“Oh.” Mabel bites her lips, obviously trying to hold something back.

“And he said something about a minotaur?”

“Manotaur.”

“W—? Uh—yeah, so—“ He looks at her, confused. “Anyway.” He shakes his head. “He’s helping me with the writing—and stuff.”

Mabel nods, grinning. “So he knows about all your plans?”

He scratches his head. “Yeah, basically.”

She grinds her upper teeth to her lower lip. “Do you, like—“ She deepens her grin, with her dimples and her big brown eyes. “Do you tell each other everything?”

“Not everything.”

“But most things.”

“Yeah, most things.”

She pulls Norman in, at that. She takes his neck under her arm and she gives him a noogie and ruffles his hair. “You are too sweet,” she tells him, as he struggles to keep his body from falling off. “Too fucking sweet.” She says, then, that they really have to get Dipper out here with them, or out anywhere for that matter. Perhaps, Norman thinks, he can take Dipper on a monster hunt in the woods, like they did some months before. He remembers, though, how Dipper complained that this part of the country isn’t as infested as Gravity Falls, Oregon.  

Mabel says that she’ll think of something, and that Norman shouldn’t worry. “I’ll talk it over with Coraline.”

“You’re probably wondering why this is my favorite place,” she segues. She dips a hand into the water and glides her fingers around. Norman keeps his arms stretched behind him.

“Yeah, I kind of was,” he says.

Mabel stands up, and she extends an arm to help him get up too. Her sketchpad is left on the wood of the dock.

“Uh—your sketchpad—“

“Leave it,” she says.

And then what comes after takes Norman by surprise. Though, really, it’s Mabel, and he should have seen it coming.

“It’s because I get to do this to people,” is what she says, when she grabs his arms and grips tight.

“Jesus fucking—“ He exclaims, because he’s just been pushed into the water, and all he hears now is Mabel’s shrill, evil laughter.

It’s like the water’s one giant ghost. It’s green and it’s cold and it’s murky. And there is in fact a ghost, a few meters away, naked, young, and luminescent, swimming and laughing along with the girl who pushed him in.

He yells out Mabel’s name, he curses under his breath, and he laughs.

“Poor, poor Normy. Your hair’s gone flat,” she says to him, while pulling him out after five minutes of hysterics. His clothes stick to his skin. He coughs and he shivers. Mabel runs her fingers through his hair. “Don’t worry,” she says, with that big Mabel grin of hers. “I’ll make sure Dipper gives you a nice hot bath tonight.”

}

 

{ The topic of Coraline’s joyride is mentioned while someone is getting slashed to death on the television and while Dipper is between Norman’s legs, turned on and ready to pull down Norman’s briefs.

“Seriously?” He looks up, glares at Norman, his hands carefully placed at Norman’s thighs. “Seriously, Norman? You’re asking me at a time like this? Seriously?” He fingers Norman’s garter, makes it slap down. He lifts the hem of Norman’s shirt, exposing just a bit of skin. He lifts it to see the outline of Norman’s muscle, and the trail of Norman’s body hair. Dipper rubs at the spot below Norman’s navel, trying to make Norman stop talking.

Norman laughs, with a tremble. “Y—Yeah. Been meaning to ask, just—just haven’t uh—“ Dipper rubs at the outline of Norman’s dick, licks his lip. Norman continues saying “I was just wondering, you know, since Mabel was asking me—the—other—“

Dipper looks up again. “The answer is no,” is his response, pulling down Norman’s underwear with a shove. “Now,” he continues. “Shut up and let me get this started.”

Norman gasps, and Dipper breathes in deep before he starts, making sure his breath is hot against Norman’s crotch.

Again, however, he glares and he grunts because, while the screams of a girl is heard from the TV, a loud, deafening knock is also heard from his door.

Dipper scratches his head, grunts, shuts his eyes in annoyance, sits up. “Jesus, fuck.”

“Dipper, Dipper, Dipper, Dipper.”

Dammit, Mabel.

Norman gets on his feet, flustered, fixing his hair, zipping up his jeans.

Dipper doesn’t get up. Instead, he sits back and snarls. He keeps his eyes on the television while Mabel is let in. She has Wybie and Neil with her, Wybie all fidgety and unsure whether he’s allowed inside the room, Neil whistling and full of nonchalance. Mabel, as always, rushes to bounce herself down beside Dipper.

He really wanted to finish that blowjob. He could’ve done it in a minute, two minutes top. Norman, he decides, is a fucktard that always has to open up his big mouth and ruin everything.

}

 

{ Norman tried his hardest; he really did.

He thinks so, at least.

“Maybe we shouldn’t do this tonight, guys,” he tells them, at the door, in a whisper.

“Yeah, what he said,” says Wybie.

“Now’s as good a time as any,” says Mabel.

“Yeah, totes,” says Neil.

Norman eyes Neil, shakes his head.

“No, I mean, he’s gonna get angry.”

“Psh,” Mabel dismisses him. “That’s a given.”

“No—he’ll—“ He looks back, sees Dipper snarling with his eyes looking straight at the TV. “Today more than ever. He’ll be even angrier.”

Mabel rolls her eyes.

There really isn’t any stopping this.

}

 

{ “I am not talking to you.”

Dipper crosses his arms and leans back against the side of Neil’s van. A short distance away, his sister is trying to teach a flustered Wybie the chicken dance while she holds a beer bottle in one of her hands. Coraline is sitting on a log, trying to set up a fire. Neil is down on the ground, lying flat on fallen leaves, laughing and singing next to the boom box playing Lady Antebellum in max volume.

Really, he has no time for this. This is not how he wanted to spend his free time.

He was in the middle of watching a movie and venting out his sexual frustration when he was blindfolded and smuggled out of his dorm room. He’d thought they were all there just to hang out, but apparently, they had his untimely demise planned for him.

A thousand “fuck you’s” and a million arm flails later, he ends up here, at the woods two and a half miles away from the college. The trees here are the types that are slender, brimming with branches extending in all directions. Luckily, the air is not harsh tonight; it’s breezy and warm, so they need not fear freezing to death. Coraline says it’s perfect, because the telltale signs that they should stay out tonight are all present.

“I—I’m sorry, Dipper, but that was the only that you’d—“

“That wasn’t the only way, you shit.” He punches Norman at the shoulder, and he glares at his boyfriend, who’s standing in front of him, hands burrowed into his jacket and face distorted, hurt.

“That face won’t work on me, Norman.”

“W—What are you even talking about? I—Dipper.” He holds Dipper’s arm. “Dipper, you’ve got all the right to be angry.”

Dipper doesn’t push him away. He continues his glare, and he waits for Norman to say something.

“But, you know, I think you’ve got to admit you’ve been a little—neurotic, lately.”

“Neurotic? Me? Oh, you don’t say.”

Norman tries to calm him down, grabbing both Dipper’s arms, explaining to him that this isn’t how he wanted to do it, but the “power of Mabel” was just too strong. Dipper wants to laugh at this, but he sputters, “You should’ve told me that when I was gonna put your cock in my mouth.” This makes Norman blush, and apologize, and Dipper rolls his eyes.

“Could you at least let me show you something?” Norman tells him. He cocks up an eyebrow, listens, attention captured. Norman says that he researched about something, something cool, about these particular woods. It’s something that only happens at a certain time of night, when everything has gone dark. It’s only a rumor, really.

Dipper curls his lips.

He knows about that story. He’s read about it. But he’s always thought it was rubbish.

“I know about that,” he says. “I read about it in—in—“

“A forum. Yeah, that’s where I found out about it.”

There’s a pause, before Norman goes on to speak again.

“What do you say?” he says.

And Dipper’s all “sure, fuck it,” because he’s got nothing better to do.

This is how they end up leaving their friends, running, looking for a spot where the “things” could pass by. Dipper is still a little angry, tense, thinking about the group meeting he has tomorrow. They have to go to the police station, do an interview. Dipper will probably miss it. He probably will.

They sit in a dent formed on a boulder and under a log. They are hidden in shade, and they are stuck together, trying to fit in. Dipper’s eyebrows are furrowed and his lips are nipped. The place smells like dirt and grass and a bit like shit. Dipper expects that he’d start to regret this right about now, but on the contrary, he feels a rush of excitement in his stomach and he has an arm clinging on to Norman’s.

They have to wait for an hour because it’s still eleven and the time isn’t quite right yet.

“You know,” Dipper starts to say. “This is pretty amazing.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Dipper says. “And I love you for bringing me here.”

Norman smiles, small and thoughtful. Dipper chuckles, with a break in his voice. Norman laughs, giggles, at that.

“Do I still get some action when we get back?”

“In my room? Yeah, of course, shut up.”

Dipper knows that it’s almost time; he looks at his watch. He knows for sure because he starts hearing the gallops of a horse, the oink of a pig, and the roar of a lion.

What he sees first almost makes him want to scream out and laugh. Norman stops him by putting a hand over his mouth and telling him to “shush.”

He sees a bunny rabbit, standing upright, hopping into the trees, much like the rabbit from Alice in Wonderland.

Next, there’s the horse, neighing, rushing through the trunks and still managing to fit.

Then the pig comes, oinking so loud, and he wants to tell Mabel all about this, because: Waddles.

A fox follows, also standing on its hind legs. The fox is tall and thin; he’s wearing a suit, and it freaks Dipper out.

It’s all too surreal, and too freaky. It’s sending fuzz into Dipper’s stomach and into his head.

The lion is last, and it’s slow, godly, lingering. It stands with its back in front of them, and Dipper could almost reach its tail. It turns its head, sideways; Dipper can see its mane and he wants to feel it in his fingers. The lion grunts and it rushes into the bushes before Dipper can do any such thing.

In the forums, this is what they call a demon walk, and though there only a few that pass by them, they are enough to make Dipper energized and dumbstruck all at the same time.

Dipper is sideways, dizzy, and thankful when they leave their spot and look for the place where they left their friends. He’d kissed Norman at the neck and on the forehead, and now more than ever, he wants to bite the guy’s face off, live inside him.

He and his friends sing top 40 hits, lazy and sleepy and drunk. Dipper is most unsatisfied by the way this is going.

“This is not the way to sing, guys,” Dipper says, with a sly smile. “You need some more—“ He makes a fist, gets up from the log they’ve been sitting on. “You need some more oomph.”

Mabel shouts, “So show us the oomph, Dipsauce!” Norman is laughing, boyish and encouraging.

“Oh Jesus,” Norman says.

“Oh Jesus indeed,” Coraline adds.

Dipper obliges, but he says they need to play a special song for him, one by Babba. Mabel has a CD with her, and Dipper knew that, because it’s Mabel and there are things they agree on that don’t really need to be said.

Coraline tells Wybie to put the CD in. Wybie fumbles around, fidgets, falls to the ground before he gets to put the CD into the boom box.

Dipper sings, and he dances. His voice breaks, in the way that his voice has since pre-puberty. He doesn’t care. Norman stands with him, sings with him with as much emotion as he can churn out. Neil and Mabel join in. Coraline doesn’t. She sits, has Wybie lying on her lap. She looks satisfied just watching.

He has not been this happy in a long while. He has not felt this overwhelming sense of heart and belonging since—well—since he and Norman got together.

College can go fuck itself. For now. At least. He’ll have to do a lot of apologizing tomorrow. He knows he has to.

Tonight, he’s getting some well-deserved sleep because he’s been getting no sleep at all for so many days. He’s getting the kind of sleep he wants, nuzzling on Norman’s shoulder, smelling Norman’s cologne, smelling the sweat sticking to Norman’s shirt, comfortable, just a tad bit turned on.

Wybie wakes him up the next day, with a stick poking at his cheek. He’s lying on grass and red leaves, next to Norman. No one else is there; Dipper remembers they’re back in the van, because last night, they saw a rat running through their feet and they were all “fuck” and “shit,” making a beeline for the car.

His eyebrows furrow, and he swats the stick away. “Jesus Christ, Wybie,” he says.

“Oh, you’re not dead. That’s good,” Wybie says, as Dipper sits up and gives him a snarl. Norman too has just woken up, scratching his head and yawning. Wybie asks them if they had sex there. Dipper, by instinct, smacks the guy’s forehead.

“What time is it?” Norman yawns, nonchalant.

“Eleven,” Wybie says, prompting Dipper to look at his watch. Yes, it’s eleven, and Dipper has a group meeting in a few minutes.

He finds, though, that he doesn’t really care.

For a minute, at least.

Dipper smacks his hands onto his face. “Oh Jesus, I have to get to the police station.”

Someone yells, “Shut the fuck up, Dipper!” and it’s Mabel, obviously.

“We’ll drive you there,” Norman says. “We’ve still got time. You can be little late.”

“But my clothes.”

Norman shrugs. “It’s either that or you miss it.”

“I think I’d rather miss it.”

“Really?”

“No.”

“Then let’s go.” Norman stands up, and he gives Dipper a hand. His hair is messy, his lips are quirked up, and his fly is half open.

It’s unfair that Norman gets to look like that. It really is.

}

 

{ While Dipper is out finishing his work, Norman stays in his own room, drawing, making a storyboard, suddenly afflicted with a surge of inspiration.

Unlike Dipper with his one-person bedroom, Norman has a roommate, so he has to fit his buttload of materials on one side of the room. His roommate is nice, quiet, agreeable; Norman hasn’t really fostered a friendship with him. The guy likes sports and likes talking about the NBA playoffs, which Norman knows zilch about. He’s a man of video games, b-grade horror films, and boys with dreams of becoming consulting detectives. He and his roommate mostly keep to themselves, Norman with his video camera and his cardboard box full of things he needs for stop motion animation.

He really wants this film to be something he can turn in, someday, to a legit production company.

Norman draws, now. He draws on thin sheets of papers. He makes the panels and then he draws the house called the Mystery Shack and the twins who spend summer after summer there. He takes the script that Dipper helped him with; it has more directives than it does dialogue. Norman scribbles on the paper, makes changes, adds in some details. He wants there to be a lion in this; he has to fit it in somewhere.

He draws, writes, and then he moves on to his glue and his popsicle sticks, the ones he uses to make his experimental set. He leans back on his black computer chair, and he sticks out his tongue while he carefully pieces a body together.

He decides to turn on his laptop, after a while. He checks for messages, sees them, replies to them. Apparently, his Experimental Film classmates have come up with a list of prospective actors to use for their final project. At the end of the email, he notices that the sender’s asking if anyone of them is familiar with people from the fashion school, because they might need help with the styling. Norman takes the opportunity, of course, to suggest his dear friend and kind of sister-in-law Mabel Pines.

Norman, by instinct, types in that Mabel is in fact his “sister-in-law.” He realizes this, and his eyes widen. Backspace, backspace, backspace. He sends the message a little later, sure that he hasn’t said anything incriminating (which is how Dipper would surely put it).

The wall clock says that it’s seven in the evening.

Dipper should be back by now.

On his way out, he sees Mrs. Enriquez, the friendly ghost dressed in a torn apart gown floating outside his dorm room. He says, “hi” to her and says she looks great today. She says, “hohoho,” coyly covers her mouth, and tells him he looks happier than usual today.

Dipper’s room is all the way to the adjoining building, so Norman gets to see a lot more of his special friends.

He pets the dead kittens running around in the corner. “Hey little dudes,” he says, kneeling down, smoothing his fingers onto the translucent fur, not caring if anyone’s seeing him.

“Yo dude, nice kicks.” He salutes, at the man with braids, a cigarette, mismatched shoes, and a knife at his chest.

“Good evening Dean Forman.” He bows his head, at the wrinkly old man in a monocle and a suit, forever unmoving, forever stoic.

“Hey Jojo, you having a nice time today?” He ruffles the hair of the little kid with puffy cheeks and a head that’s permanently bent.

“Antonio, my main man.” He does gun motions at the boy who has a hole on his head, who looks about his age, who’s wearing what might have been gold necklaces, silver bracelets, and all sorts of other bling.

 “Any new gossip today, Sally?” He grins at the girl in a tight tube top and thick lipstick and only one working eye. She giggles at him, tries to give him a wink.

He’s at Dipper’s door in five minutes. He feels light and overall, he’s ready to have a bit of fun tonight.

}

 

{ They lie down, talk to each other, their voices the only things they hear, while they’re side by side on Dipper’s bed. Dipper finds himself rambling on and on, without his voice straining or breaking. He talks about this case being handled by their local police, about this unknown, mysterious man who claims to be in possession of a multitude of material that can ruin the town’s leading politicians. Dipper rambles on and on about it until he segues, talks about how much shit he got for arriving late and looking like a hobo.

Norman adds comments, adds jokes, but he doesn’t talk as much as Dipper, like always. Dipper knows that Norman must have a lot to say, but chooses to let Dipper talk. Dipper doesn’t complain.

They sit up after a while, and they stretch their arms. Dipper decides to rest his head on Norman’s shoulder, just for a while. He decides to do this, to latch on to him, before he decides to kiss him, softly, quickly, for good measure.

Dipper doesn’t hesitate to take Norman’s hands and bring them to his cheeks. “I need you,” he says, because he does, badly. He needs Norman to touch him.

It’s wet, slippery, when Norman kisses him. Norman fingers through Dipper’s hair, and Dipper smiles as Norman does this. He kisses Norman slowly, carefully, while feeling triumphant. He rubs under Norman’s shirt, curls his fingers, feels the heat on Norman’s skin.

He tells Norman how he wants it, like he always does. He takes the bottle from the bedside table and places it in Norman’s hands, urgent, needy. “I need—today—I need you—inside me,” he says. “I need it.” He breathes out before he pushes himself back into Norman’s mouth, licks at the edges.

They’re frantic. Dipper lifts Norman shirt, and he lifts his own shirt; he hurries, suddenly feeling a haziness in his head. Norman reaches over to unzip Dipper’s jeans, and Dipper lets him. It’s awkward, though, how they struggle to get them off. They laugh. “We can never get this right, can we?” Dipper says, and then they laugh some more. Norman stands up at this, and he just shoves down his pants. Dipper follows and then he draws Norman back to the bed with a limp, extended arm.

Dipper sits on him, on Norman’s stretched out legs, hugs Norman, keeps his arms circling Norman’s neck and his fingers clutching at Norman’s back. Norman starts preparing him, slowly, while Dipper directs; he tells him precisely how to move around and how to make him tremble. Dipper says “yes,” says “there, there, right there,” and he gasps at every touch.

The bed is creaking when Dipper pushes himself down, against the headboard. He has his back on a pillow; his legs are lifting themselves, clinging behind Norman, pushing forward. They start like this: Dipper egging Norman on, Dipper telling him to push in. “It’s okay, I’m okay, just do it, Norman, goddammit.”

They start like that, and then, somewhere in the middle, Dipper tells Norman who’s sweating and moaning and trembling at Dipper’s heat, to lift him up, to take him against the wall.

While they’re up, and while Norman continues to push inside, Norman’s left hand slides itself at the side of Dipper’s abdomen, thin fingers tracing the freckles on Dipper’s body. Dipper smiles, tightens his grip at Norman’s back, kisses him though almost missing his lips because of deliria. Norman licks him, then, licks at his chin, at Dipper’s stubble.

“We should really make a porno,” Dipper says, back on the bed, both tired from lifting. He reasons out in between kisses that Norman “totally has the skills for it.” He means this. Norman’s got the skill for both production and performance. “You’ve got your filmmaking mojo and your hot dick,” he says, with a laugh, while Norman slams into him, before Norman laughs along and says “whatever you say, Dipper.” Dipper doesn’t shut up, saying that the movie could be like a zombie sex thing or some kind of kinky vampire shit. Norman kisses him, saying that Dipper should really shut the fuck up.

They go faster. Dipper tells him to keep it up, tells him he’s doing so, so great. They climax, almost at the same time. Dipper comes all over his chest, moaning, cursing loudly, trying to breathe out Norman’s name. Norman pulls out to take off the condom and get himself off; he’s flustered, red, and he comes while Dipper pushes his head down to press their lips together.

In the end, Norman lies on top of him, exhausted, all his hair sticking up, but sweaty. Dipper has a hand outlining Norman’s backbone. His other hand is deep in Norman’s hair. Norman’s eyes are narrowing; he’s sleepy. Dipper isn’t. He wants to lie there, awake, taking in Norman’s smell for the whole night.

“I really love you, you know,” Dipper says, and Norman says it back, brings a heavy weight into Dipper’s heart. 

Later at an unholy hour, Dipper opts to get up from bed, with Norman still asleep. He ruffles Norman’s hair, first, before he sits at his orange desk and opens his laptop.

He tries to start an essay, one that’s due two days from now. He rubs at his eyes and he types. He’s barely clothed, only putting on his boxer shorts.

And, “fucking malarkey,” he whines, because everything writes is incoherent.

He tries to write it, doesn’t give up for the whole night, and barely gets an ounce of sleep. 

The next day, he’s groggy and sore and regretful. Norman, however, keeps him from going batshit crazy. Norman lends him his Halloween-themed shirt. It’s soft and it fits Dipper’s body. Dipper’s happy, because of that. It’s all he needs.

}

 

{ At the end of the term, they stay in for a long weekend, just the two of them, and they decide to room together for the time being.

Because Dipper is still trying to ease out his post-term stress, they watch Love Actually instead of the 1980s horror movie Norman just purchased.

Norman is convinced that Dipper has literally memorized every single dialogue in this film. They sit on Dipper’s green couch, and Norman keeps an arm around Dipper’s shoulders. Dipper keeps his legs folded to his chest and keeps a blanket wrapped around his body. Norman sees him mouthing every word to all the scenes with Colin Firth, and Norman sees him tear up when Keira Knightley is given a proclamation of love through pictures and signboards.

“Did you want me to do it that way?” Norman says, flippant.

“Shut up,” he says, bumping Norman lightly with his knee. He adds that,  “I would’ve been the one doing the confessing.”

“Yeah, right,” Norman laughs.

“I would’ve had you pegged.”

“Sure.”

“I would’ve been a master wooer.”

“Mmhmm.”

The conversation ends there, because the airport scene is on, and it’s Dipper’s favorite part, aside from every single other scene.

Norman gets to ask Dipper later if he thought Norman would’ve been a good “wooer.”

“Oh god,” Dipper responds, at first, and then he says, “No.”

Norman pouts.

“You would never need to,” Dipper says.

“Why?”

“Because.”

“Because what?”

Dipper shrugs.

Norman remembers several conversations that ended this way. He remembers that time under the tree and Dipper’s apparent mission to keep Norman’s smell with him everywhere.

Suddenly, Dipper’s freckled cheeks have just become more attractive.

Norman leans in, and he snickers.

He gives Dipper’s cheek a quick lick.

“Yum.”

“Jesus,” Dipper says, holding his cheek and looking mortified. “Why would you even do that?”

Norman just laughs.

Dipper’s lips curl. He places his head right under Norman’s armpit. He mutters that Norman’s an “asshole,” and then he just stops moving altogether.

Norman hasn’t got a clue what to do with the guy, so he just hugs him, awkward and stiff, and while he’s got Dipper wrapped in his arms, he wants to ask “Do I smell that good?”

He says exactly that, with a stammer and with nervous laughter.

He expects to get a punch in the face, but instead he gets an answer.

“Yes.”

Which, in retrospect, is kind of like a punch in the face.

 

 

 **the end.** }


End file.
